Doomed (Fireworks Series #3)

Dedicated to Zanthinegirl. Thank you for your kind and incredibly well-timed gifts.

"What's wrong?" Hermione asked Harry... for about the eighth time that day.

Harry blinked owlishly behind his glasses, shook his head, and reiterated that it was nothing before he spooned another piece of treacle tart into his mouth.

For about the eighth time that day Hermione couldn't help but wonder if Harry had begun to suspect something when George and Fred had joined them for breakfast and then lunch. She was almost glad that when she, Ron and Harry had reached the Great Hall that evening the twins had already been surrounded on all sides by other Gryffindors. Almost. She realised that her gaze had strayed to the twins again and forced her attention back to her trifle only to decide that butterflies in the stomach and gelatinous food didn't make an appetising combination. She pushed the bowl aside.

A flash of dark copper caught her eye as Ginny arose from her seat further down the table and, with barely a word of excuse to Ron and Harry, Hermione grabbed her bag and hurried off, catching up with the younger girl just as she reached the bottom of the main staircase.

"Hi," she gasped, only slightly breathlessly.

"Hey," Ginny responded, looking rather puzzled and more than a little concerned. "What's up?"

"Up? N—Nothing. Nothing's up," Hermione found herself babbling, even though she'd come after Ginny with the express intention of, if not telling her right there and then about what had happened with her brother, then at least arranging to meet her later somewhere other than the common room, so that they could talk.

"Hermione?" Ginny paused on the stair she was on, waited for Hermione to turn in her direction, and then raised an eyebrow.

"What?" Hermione squeaked, the nonchalance she was aiming for completely passing her by.

Ginny began to climb again, keeping a good ten feet between them and a group of Ravenclaws who were coming up the stairs behind them. "The last time you were in this much of a hurry to say nothing was when Viktor Krum asked you to the Yule Ball. Spill!"

"Haven't you got Quidditch practice?" Hermione asked, hating the wheedling tone of her voice.

"Not for another half an hour," Ginny answered, taking Hermione's hand and almost dragging her up the stairs when she looked as if she might hang back. "You're not getting off that easy. You can tell me while I get changed."

Hermione looked around Ginny's dormitory, making sure that the two of them were the only ones there and not knowing whether she'd be happier if she found someone else or not. When she was finally convinced that no one was lurking in a corner or hidden away behind any of the bed hangings, she turned back to Ginny.

"You have to promise not to tell anyone."

Ginny rolled her eyes, berating her friend for stating the obvious as she kicked off her black leather shoes and pushed them under her bed with a foot. "So it's not Ron, then. Is it someone else from the DA?" She stripped off her robes to reveal her uniform jumper and skirt underneath.

"I haven't actually said it was anyone," Hermione protested.

"You didn't have to," Ginny teased, throwing a pair of jeans and a hooded top onto her bed and then hurling herself after them. "Now are you going to tell me who asked you out?" She pulled the hangings on the bed closed, but then stuck her head back through the gap. "Or will I just start shouting out names until I get to the right one? ...Even though that'll take longer and by the time we get to the lucky guy that might mean telling all the fourth-years, which means you might as well put a notice on the common room notice board," she added before she disappeared behind the hangings again.

"How do you know he asked me?" Hermione stalled.

"Because you already said it wasn't Ron."

"You said it wasn't Ron," Hermione reminded her. "I haven't actually told you anything, yet."

"It's not Dean, is it?" Ginny asked, the name only slightly muffled by whatever she had been taking off or putting on over her head as she spoke.

"No—o," Hermione looked puzzled for a second. "You don't think Dean likes me... do you?"

"Well, not that I know of, but I know it wouldn't be Harry because he's still mooning over Cho and if it was someone like that Zacharias wart, then you wouldn't be worrying about it because you'd just have said no. Even with Neville, you'd probably say no but you'd feel guilty about it, whereas you look more like you said yes but you don't know yet if you did the right thing..."

Hermione took a deep breath and decided it was best to get this over and done with. "It's George," she announced.

Ginny's bed hangings were thrown wide, framing the kneeling girl in the middle of them. She already wore the hooded top, but her jeans were rucked around her thighs and she looked as if the only thing holding her up was the grip she had on the hangings. "It's who?"

"George. Your brother. The slightly less mouthy one of the twins."

The hangings began to rip, not intended to bear the weight of a fifteen-year-old girl and, before Hermione could get her wand out, Ginny was lying face down in a heap on the floor. The redhead rolled over onto her back, lifted her hips, pulled her jeans the rest of the way up and fastened both button and zip. "That's what I thought you said." Taking advantage of her position on the floor she reached under the bed and pulled out a pair of trainers. Then, she stood up, throwing the torn hangings onto the bed's mattress and staring at Hermione almost as if they had never met before and she was sizing her up, rather than having been Hermione's best girl-friend since the first time Hermione had visited The Burrow.

Hermione realised that her palms were suddenly damp. Ginny was supposed to be the easy one, the one who'd be there for Hermione when George himself was long gone, but Hermione found that she had no idea what Ginny was thinking.

Ginny's words were soft but her tone was firm, possibly even slightly menacing. "Don't hurt him."

"I—" Hermione began to say she wasn't quite sure what, but Ginny held up her hand.

"Hermione, don't let the jokes fool you into thinking that the twins never take anything seriously. We both know that they've fooled around a bit in the past with some of the Muggle girls from the village back home, but unless you count the Yule Ball — and I don't really, because I think it was more like half the Quidditch team going as a group than a real date — neither one of them has ever dated a witch. If George is crossing the line between friendship and dating, then he's serious ...and if you're still hung up on Ron, then it isn't fair—"

"I—" Hermione struggled for a way to tell her just how much had changed overnight. It would have sounded crude after Ginny's serious words if she told her that when George kissed her she knew exactly whose lips they were and if she thought at all about Ron it was only to realise how insipid her daydreams of the other brother seemed when compared with the reality of George... Of course, most of the time when George was kissing her she couldn't think of anything at all. Just the same, it wasn't as if she could declare undying love after one date either. "I think my one-time crush on Ron will be the least of our problems."

Ginny sat back down on the edge of her bed and patted the space next to her, inviting Hermione to join her. "Do you think you could love him?" she asked her friend.

Hermione gave a rueful smile as she joined the other girl. "I already do... just, until last night, it was more of a brother thing."

"And now?" Ginny asked.

"Now I feel like, if I let my guard down for even a minute, I could fall so hard that it's going to break me into a thousand pieces when he goes..." An arm wrapped itself around Hermione's shoulders and pulled her into a sisterly hug, muffling the rest of her words against Ginny's shoulder. "And I'm scared to death of how it'll end, but I'm even more scared of letting the chance slip through my fingers."

Ginny squeezed her tight and then, with a hand on each of Hermione's shoulders, set them far enough apart again to let the other girl look into her eyes. "You mean to say that after years of being around the twins you still haven't learned that anything's possible, if you just have the nerve? And George has enough nerve for a small army. It might get a bit harder to see each other once the twins leave Hogwarts, but he'll find a way."

Hermione tried to smile her thanks, but she suspected that it came out as more of a grimace. "I'm doomed, aren't I?"

Ginny grinned back at her. "Totally."

The dormitory door squeaked open, admitting a group of about four girls, all of whom seemed to be finding it vastly amusing that the headmaster's study had sealed itself against Umbridge.

"Well, I'll let you finish getting changed," Hermione said with a false lightness of tone.

"Wait a minute," Ginny requested, pushing on her trainers, grabbing her crimson Quidditch robes and her broom from her trunk and catching up with Hermione at the dormitory door. "Up or down?" Ginny asked after the door closed behind them, leaving them alone on the small landing, and Hermione jerked her head upward in response.

"I need to get my bath things." She looked up and down the stairwell, checking for possible eavesdroppers before she continued. "I've got a date later tonight and I might as well grab the prefects' bathroom before Ron and Angelina get back from practice and start fighting over who gets to use it first."

Ginny engulfed her friend in one last hug, inadvertently poking the handle of her broomstick into Hermione's back as she did so. "Welcome to the family," she whispered before she took off down the stairs, intent on cornering George and issuing him with a sisterly warning about the latest hexes she had learned and the fact that she would gladly practice on him, brother or not, if he screwed this up.